- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry
- Ontario
- Voting Attendance: 64%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $135,225.85
- Government Page
- May/7/24 1:39:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it turns out that budgets do not balance themselves. After nine years of the Prime Minister and the NDP-Liberal government, they are zero for nine, as they are not even coming close to balancing the books here in Ottawa. Not only has the government not balanced the budget at all, but it has also doubled our national debt to $1.3 trillion and counting, with $43 billion alone being added in the deficit to our national debt this year. That is in just one fiscal year.
The budget is big, a document that is a couple of inches thick. One can go back to look at the charts to see if the Liberals ever plan to balance the budget. The answer is no. There is no date, no year and no circumstance that the Liberals and NDP have proposed to balance the budget. The worst part is that there are tons of broken promises that they have made, which they have yet to fulfill, that will only result in more spending, driving our deficit up even further in this country.
This is important in talking about the budget because balanced budgets have been a part of the common-sense Canadian consensus in this country for generations, for nearly the entire history of our country. There has been an idea that deficits are the exception, not the norm. Deficits were timely, targeted and temporary. Previous Liberal and Conservative governments, for the most part, over the years, followed that line of thought. Instead, we now have permanent and painful deficits hurting our country year after year, with no end in sight. Back in the day, when I was a mayor in rural eastern Ontario, the same principle and expression applied. It was easy to tell people what we would spend money on. The hard part was how to pay for it.
What we see here are never-ending deficits, with budgets that do not balance, along with endless tax hikes, whether it is the carbon tax, being the main point, the excise tax or numerous other examples of the Liberals and NDP being more than happy to add to the tax burden, particularly at a time when Canadians can least afford it. After nine years, they still use the same tired lines when it comes to their budgets. They say the wealthy will pay, that the rich will pay for all these new things. After nine years, they are still not getting that average Canadians are moderate to low-income families that are struggling to get by. They are seeing the carbon tax and the excise tax being added for them, for example, and they are seeing the value of their paycheques becoming less and less powerful the longer and longer the Prime Minister remains.
Deficits matter as well because they require money printing. This is half a trillion dollars by the Bank of Canada. The Prime Minister, in his nine years, has doubled our national debt, more than every other prime minister combined in our country's history. They are still not even close, being $40 billion off from getting the budget to be balanced. There is now more money being printed, and it is chasing fewer goods, which is resulting in record inflation that has not been seen in at least 40 years.
The Prime Minister has said not to worry as interest rates are low and it is not a big deal. Again, all that extra money printing has led to inflation. Canadian households have been hurt very badly by this with skyrocketing mortgages and rents. Interest rates have been driven up by this out-of-control inflationary spending. Food prices are increasing continually at levels that are unsustainable.
For the average Canadian in this country, at a time when the benchmark is that people should not be spending more than 30% of their household income on shelter, people are spending over double that. Over 60% of Canadian household income is now going just to putting a roof over their heads, before they buy food, put gas in their car or do anything else, just to make ends meet. Not only has all of this inflationary spending and the interest rates and mortgage rates that have increased hurt Canadian households, they have done a bad number on the finances of the federal government as well this year. Despite the financing of all this massive new debt with interest and mortgage rates all going up, the Prime Minister did not seem to think it was a big deal. The government planned to borrow the money when interest rates were low.
Since rates have gone up, as all this borrowed money and refinancing has renewed, we have seen an astronomical increase in the interest on debt-servicing costs alone. We spent $54 billion, not to pay down the national debt in any way, but just to pay the interest on the $1.2 trillion to $1.3 trillion in national debt that we have. We spend more now on those interest payments than we do on health care transfers. We are giving money to bankers and bondholders, as opposed to more money to doctors, nurses, hospitals and long-term care.
The solution is simple, and it is common sense. It is a dollar-for-dollar rule. Conservatives have said that for every new dollar of spending in a Conservative government, we would find a dollar of savings. That is not some wild, radical idea. Look no further than to the U.S. It was Bill Clinton, a Democrat, then president of the United States, and Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the House of Representatives, who negotiated that deal. As a matter of fact, that same dollar-for-dollar rule was the last time the budget in the United States was balanced. It shows that it can be done here and, more important than anything, that we have to get our finances under control.
After nine years of the Prime Minister, the more he spends, the worse it gets. The more he spends, the higher our debt, our deficits, our interest payments and the burden, not only today but also on future generations.
I want to talk about the carbon tax. The carbon tax is the number one issue I hear in my travels throughout Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry and Cornwall. In this budget, the Liberals and the NDP keep their plan to be completely out of touch, extreme when it comes to their approach on the carbon tax. They are happy with where it is right now, which is about 18¢ a litre on the price of gas and 21¢ a litre on the price of diesel, and they want to quadruple it in the coming years, as part of their plan.
Here is the quick summary of exactly how they are going to do that. They never come out and tell Canadians the way that it is going to be and that it is going to be 61¢. We have to piece it together as they try to do the shell game and hide all of it. There is carbon tax number one, and again, as we all know, farmers will be paying $1 billion on their natural gas and propane in the coming years, just on that, with no rebates. Trucking companies that ship food, goods and services get no rebates. Small businesses get no rebates.
There is no confidence whatsoever. The Liberals have been talking for years about offering rebates, and they will continue. There is no detail and no plan to actually do that.
At the end of the day, those rebates are phony, because the Parliamentary Budget Officer says that just on that first carbon tax, eight out of 10 families are going to be, or are, paying more in carbon tax. For example, an Ontario family is going to pay hundreds of dollars, $478, by the time we look at everything, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer.
That is the first carbon tax.
The second carbon tax is a fuel standard that the Parliamentary Budget Officer says is going to add 17¢ a litre in the coming years. There are zero rebates for anyone, anywhere on that.
If it is not out of touch enough to have carbon tax one at 37¢ and carbon tax two at 17¢, coming in, then how out of touch, tax hungry and tax-increase obsessed are the Liberals and the NDP if they are going to tax the tax? They are going to tax the tax by continuing to put the HST on all those other carbon tax increases to get to 61¢ a litre.
I got a letter recently from the Army, Navy and Air Force Club in Cornwall. Do members know who also does not get a rebate? Community halls and community centres. They sent me their natural gas bill for just one month this winter. The carbon tax and the HST on it was $275 of an $1,100 bill, just to service that. Those are halls, community centres and legions that are paying a carbon tax with zero rebates, further driving up their costs, for just a simple not-for-profit cause in our community.
I want to address the NDP, as we always do, and the budget. If there was only something they could do about it. We hear them in question period. We hear them in the budget debate. They complain about all the terrible things the Liberals are not doing, saying that they promised something in the budget and that they never delivered. They talk tough. The leader of the NDP made a speech a couple of weeks ago, saying that he was not in favour of the carbon tax anymore. Then, he flip-flopped and said that he was again. He flip-flopped on his flip-flop, if members are keeping track. The NDP talk tough in question period. When the first vote on the budget was called here within the last week, once again, the NDP propped up the Liberals. There were no questions asked. It is just the way it is.
It is time to call a carbon tax election so that Canadians can have their say on the future of this country. I have zero confidence, after nine years, in the Prime Minister to manage our country.
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- Jun/21/23 2:21:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of Liberal scandals and ethics issues, there is a laundry list of wasteful spending growing by the day: $27 million in bonuses for federal housing bureaucrats as housing costs double and the building of new homes is dropping; $116 million in consulting fees to the Prime Minister's buddies at McKinsey; $210 million to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which we will never see again after the Liberals have admitted the bank is being controlled by Beijing; and $54 million for the arrive scam app. How can we forget the stunning $4.6 billion in COVID program abuse that the Liberals could not be bothered to recover?
After eight years, the wasteful spending has added to endless Liberal deficits and painful inflation, and now to skyrocketing interest and mortgage rates for Canadians who are struggling to get by.
Conservatives will bring down inflation, get spending under control and scrap the Liberal tax hikes punishing Canadians. After all, it is just common sense. Let us bring it home.
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- Jun/8/23 2:18:21 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians learned yesterday of the devastating news to their household budgets. The Bank of Canada has hiked interest rates once again, which are now 19 times higher than they were just one year ago. Plain and simple, Canadians are at the most risk of any advanced economy for mortgage defaults, according to the IMF.
Let us make no mistake about it. These rate hikes are caused by Liberal inflationary deficits. The finance minister admitted it just weeks ago, before adding $60 billion in new deficits instead of balancing the budget. The economics here are simple. Liberal government deficits cause inflation, which cause higher interest rates, which cause mortgage defaults. The solution is simple too. Liberals must stop the deficits, which will stop the inflation, which will stop interest rates from going up, which will stop the defaults.
The Prime Minister admitted he does not spend a lot of time thinking about monetary policy, and now Canadians are paying for it. Mortgage payments are going to go up another 40%. It is time for the Liberals to smarten up and get the crisis they caused under control.
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Mr. Speaker, if I were to give any advice to a Canadian who wanted to understand where our country is financially right now, and perhaps understand the credibility of the performance of the current Liberal government, I would tell them to not read the most recent budget. Instead, what I would encourage them to do, would be to just read the one from last year and perhaps some of the independent audits that have been done on the government's financial performance.
It was just last year that the Liberals said they were finally getting tough on spending and on the country's budget. They said they were going to balance the budget in five years. They said the deficit would go down, and they used some pretty big firm words about fiscal anchors and red lines. Here we are a year later, and they broke every single one of those metrics.
After eight years of Liberal government, and after all those years of budgets, Canadians are fed up with the broken promises, and they are fed up with the doubling down by the Liberals and the NDP on the same failed approach that created the mess we are currently facing in this country with government spending, the cost of living and the inflationary pressures Canadians in every part of this country are facing in every aspect of their lives.
It is important that, when we talk about a budget, we understand and define why we are here in the first place. With many of the measures the government would try to take credit for, the reality is that they are forced to introduce them because of the problems they created. We have a 40-year high in inflation, and we still have food costs that are at double-digit increases year by year. Housing prices have doubled. What is absolutely painful for millions of Canadians on top of that is the fact that rent has doubled. Now, as interest rates have skyrocketed at a near unprecedented level, we are seeing mortgage payments doubled in this country.
If we add up the Liberals' budgets, their strategies and their plans, there is one clear conclusion: Every time the Liberals and NDP touch something, they spend record amounts, and they make the problem worse.
The interesting thing is that in the lead-up to the budget, there was a tiny part of me that was a little naive and thought maybe the Liberals finally and truly got it. It was the finance minister who went out in the days leading up to it, after years of our leader saying that, when the government drives up debt and deficits and prints half a trillion dollars over the course of a few years, it adds to and creates inflation. The Liberals denied it, and finally in the lead-up to the budget, they admitted it. They said they needed to rein in their spending and get their fiscal house in order to make sure they were not inflaming inflation further. This was a little ironic after two years of them denying it.
However, when the Liberals tabled the budget, the finance minister did not even listen to what she had said the week before while out on a tour previewing the budget. The deficit went up. There is over $40 billion in new spending, debt and deficit this year alone. It was supposed to go down, but it went up. There is new spending of $4,200 per family.
The Auditor General has said several times that the government will try to claim it had to add and double. The Prime Minister and the Liberals had to add more to our national debt in eight years than every other previous prime minister combined because of COVID, yet it was the independent Auditor General who called them out and said there were billions upon billions of dollars in increased spending because the Liberals cannot control their budgets. There was $15 billion found that was deemed fraudulent. The response from the government was that it was not worth going after.
If someone got a bill from CRA for $79.82, they had better make that payment by the end of the month, or the CRA is going to start coming after them and mailing them repeatedly until they pay, yet the Liberals let $15 billion out the door and tell Canadians that it is not even worth it. That is the reason the financial mess is happening here in Ottawa. After eight years, Canadians believe there is not a shred of fiscal responsibility left on that side of the aisle.
I want to talk tonight about interest rates. They are going up after the government, the finance minister, the Prime Minister and the governor of the Bank of Canada all said that they would not. They actually worried that, because they were spending so much, they were going to have deflation and not inflation. Not only were they wrong, but we have 40-year highs in inflation and some of the fastest increases in modern times.
Here is the thing that I want to let Canadians know when they understand what this budget is all about and how it is painful to our economy and to households in multiple ways. When interest rates go up, what many Canadians see is the pain of mortgage payments.
When the Liberals came into power in 2015, the average mortgage payment in this country was about $1,400 per month. Now, because of the mess they have created, interest rates have gone up and mortgage rates have gone up. The average right now for a mortgage in this country for a Canadian family or individual is $3,100 a month. Rent for a one-bedroom unit only a few years ago, when the Liberals came into power, was $973. Now, the average for a one-bedroom unit in this country is over $1,700 per month. At the same time, when the price of gas, the price of food and every other metric of a family budget is going up, families are now forced to find hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of dollars more per month to keep a roof over their heads.
However, the double whammy of interest rates that I want to highlight is that there is another part. The government has a mortgage debt of sorts, which is our national debt. It has now bloomed to $1.2 trillion. That is $81,000 in debt for every Canadian household in this country. Our debt, as I mentioned, has doubled in the last five years, but there is a problem where interest rates are a gut punch to taxpayers in two ways. I talked about people's family budget and how it is impacting them, but as a taxpayer, the cost to service our national debt is skyrocketing as well.
Just two years ago, the payments for the interest on the national debt were $24.5 billion dollars. That is just the interest payments and not paying it down in any way. It is a serious, major payment. This year, in the Liberals' own budget, because they have added so much to our debt and because they have allowed and caused interest rates to go through the roof with their inflationary spending, we will spend nearly $44 billion this year on just servicing the interest on our national debt. That is a major step in the wrong direction.
I will say this tonight, and not only to the government but, shamefully, to the NDP: Not only are they going along with the budget, but they are also are adding more deficit and more debt. They are increasing taxes. The carbon tax is going up. There is more money coming off of people's paycheques at the end of every month. They are making the problem worse, not better. The NDP continues to prop the Liberals up every single step of the way, and not just in financial policy that is bad for this country, but also in the cover-ups of the numerous ethical scandals the government is facing.
I am proud that, on this side of the aisle, we have a leader and a party proposing ideas about capping spending with dollar-for-dollar savings. For every dollar of proposed new spending, we would find a dollar of savings. When the number of housing starts in this country is the lowest of the G7, when it is costing so much and we are getting further behind, we need to remove gatekeepers and tie federal money to infrastructure funding and the amount of housing units being built. We need to scrap the carbon tax, which would make life more affordable and lower the cost of living in every part of this country for every Canadian.
Enough is enough. After eight years, it is time for a change, and I am anxious to get out there and let Canadians know what that alternative is.
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- Mar/28/22 12:23:59 p.m.
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- Re: Bill C-8
Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure, as always, to rise in the House to represent what I feel are the views in my riding of Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, in eastern Ontario, in response to the government's economic plan. Since it tabled this legislation, which we have been debating over the last couple months, last week's circumstance of the surprise but unsurprising deal between the NDP and the Liberals blew up the fiscal framework, several parts of which are in the bill and are going to be in subsequent budgets over the course of the next couple of years.
This specific piece of legislation has $70 billion in new inflationary spending. One thing I say to constituents very often when we are talking about support for and the funding of various programs is that it is very easy to say that we are going to fund programs A, B, C and D. That is the motherhood and apple pie of our job. The difficult part, which I believe Canadians are paying more attention to, is the financial situation and stability that our country faces.
Every single dollar in this bill, if not every single part of it, is new debt and deficit to our Canadian treasury. Canadians hear the statistic, as confirmed in the bill, that our national debt is now $1.2 trillion and growing, and one of the things we hear about is ideas. Parliament is for proposing ideas, and we are all here to make life better for Canadians. However, like in many of these bills, discussions and debates, putting the paid-for aspects on the Canadian credit card, for lack of a better term, is not talked about by the NDP and Liberal deal.
I have to laugh as I say that. As an aside, we ask if it is a coalition, an agreement, a friendship, a pact or a Kumbaya. Whatever it is, there is a framework and deal when it comes to the fiscal policy of this country over the course of the next few years. I would argue that from a technical perspective, the parties have a right in Parliament to come up with this agreement. I will not deny that. However, I think there is an ethical challenge here in terms of the openness and transparency of it. Millions of people voted for the NDP and did not vote to give the Liberal government, when it comes to committee or other measures, a free pass. Alternatively, there are many people who voted for Liberal candidates across the country who did not agree, on top of already having a deficit, to billions and billions of dollars of additional money.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer, who does great work, has had a couple of great reports that I think show a few things when it comes to the fiscal framework proposed by the government and NDP team. When it comes to the proposed stimulus spending, the PBO said, “It appears to me that the rationale for the additional spending initially set aside as ‘stimulus’ no longer exists.” He also said, “Yes, they can” in response to being asked if government deficits can contribute to inflation.
Given the bigger picture here when we look at the economic situation and this economic bill, there is a clear contrast between us on the opposition side as Conservatives and this proposed bill from the Liberals and the NDP. There are a few things I want to talk about in my comments today that provide the contrast. Other ideas are better solutions for moving this country forward, getting back to normalcy, getting our fiscal house in order and addressing many of the growing challenges and situations I am hearing about in my riding and beyond.
Housing is an example. I have spoken nearly every time I have risen in the House for the past couple of months about the growing crisis, not only in the housing market but in the rental market in the city of Cornwall, the united counties of SDG and parts of Akwesasne as well. That is a microcosm of what is happening nationally.
What is in this legislation is not a ban on foreign buyers, which was promised. We believe they should be banned for two years. That could help cool the market, particularly in larger cities.
One of the other things we talked about, and a new motion coming up is proposing ideas on it, is the government's proposed fiscal policy when it comes to housing and the first-time homebuyer shared equity program. It has been an abject failure, number one because of the participation numbers in it. The idea that the government would help give shared equity to Canadians to buy their homes may be admirable at face value to some, but all that is going to do is further inflate an already expensive housing market.
If we provide an extra $100,000 or $200,000 to help people afford a home, all that will do is to let sellers know, when there are 13 or 14 people bidding on a house in the city of Cornwall, that they have an extra $100,000 or $200,000 more in leverage to inflate the market. This is more government debt and more government printing. It is not actually lowering prices and making home ownership more affordable. It is increasing debt and increasing prices and not addressing the fundamental aspect.
I have to call out another slap to Canadians, which is the bonuses that were given at the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation, which were released a few weeks ago. CMHC is an organization that has a literal mandate to make sure Canadians have housing affordability. I do not need to summarize where we are with that in this country. Housing prices, nationally, have doubled. In our riding, housing prices are over $400,000. That has doubled in the past five years of this housing crisis.
The very benchmark of the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation is to make housing affordable. The absolute opposite has happened. For more people, the dream of home ownership and affordability is out the window, but CMHC, the Liberal minister responsible for housing and the Liberal government gave $40 million in bonuses to employees at the organization. That is a slap in the face to the 30-year-old who is living in their parent's basement because they cannot afford their dream of home ownership and who cannot afford rent because we do not have supply. I do not know what shows more of the contrast in what we are doing.
The cost of living and inflation is at a 30-year high, the highest in nearly my entire lifetime of 34 years. At the rate we are going, when we get there, we will set another record in the coming months.
When we talk about contrast, I say each time that our job as opposition is to hold the government to account on what they have proposed but also to put our money where our mouth is. If we were on the other side of the aisle, since this is Parliament and we can propose ideas, what would we do?
I have to say, I have been very proud of my Conservative colleagues over the course of the last couple of weeks. They have highlighted a few issues that, I believe, provide a direct contrast with the plans proposed by the Liberals and the NDP.
First of all, we need to get opened back up. We need to end federal mandates, vaccine mandates and travel requirements. We have heard from employers, and we have heard from the travel and tourism industry, that they are very nervous about the year ahead. Based on where the science is at, not where it was two years ago, but here today at the end of March 2022, we can lift those mandates and get our country opened up. We can be back for business. We can be welcoming international visitors safely and smartly and get our economic engine firing at 100% again.
We lost that battle. We proposed that idea and, again, the Liberal and NDP coalition, friendship, team, pack or whatever we call them, did not agree with that.
Last week in our opposition day motion, which was one of the days last week, when we had the debate and then the vote right afterwards, was something we tried to put on record and did get on record. Unfortunately we were unsuccessful, again because of the other parties, but we talked about the high price of gas and many other goods in the country.
There are two things here. Number one is that we asked for a break on GST on fuel. I came into Ottawa last night from the riding. I stopped in Monkland to fill up with gas. It was over $1.70 a litre. I know there are a lot of people in Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry who have to drive to work. There is not a subway or LRT option in Monkland or Iroquois or Crysler. I do not think there is one coming anytime soon. Driving a car to get to work or to go to hockey practice is essential when living in a rural area.
We called for a gas tax break. It was voted down. It would not solve the affordability problem, but it could have given some tax relief at a time when Canadians truly need it.
The other problem we have to confront, which the government is not doing through their economic policies, is that the carbon tax is set to increase again later this week. We are saying that, if we are not going to give a break to Canadians at the pumps when prices are high, at least do not increase taxes on everybody on April 1. That was declined.
In a democracy, there are going to be contrasts. Our contrast is quite clear. We understand the cost of living. We understand the need for relief for Canadians. When it comes to housing, we have a fundamentally different approach.
For those reasons, again, I do not support the economic and fiscal update tabled by the government. I have a feeling that with the new deal between the Liberals and the NDP, I do not see ourselves doing so in the coming years either. We will see, here on the floor of the House of Commons, further constructive ideas from Conservatives.
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